Here's something fresh for you: Canadian stoner-metallers Barn Burner and their sophomore release "Bangers II: Scum Of The Earth" released on June 7th through Metal Blade records. Caught for a few minutes on the road before opening for 3 Inches Of Blood & Cancer Bats is Barn Burner frontman Kevin Keegan to give us a few words on the new release and other such topics.

Emily : How has the tour been so far?

Kevin: It's been good, really good. We are just getting into our stride now. It's been just over a week and we're starting to feel "tour-mode" kicking in, you get used to playing in front of people. You get better at it and more confident and what not. These guys are all our old friends so we've jumped back into things right away.

Emily: Have you played with 3 Inches of Blood before?

Kevin: Yeah I've know those guys for almost a decade. I used to be in bands with some of the guys and I was actually in the band for "Hot Minute" so I know them from way back and the Cancer Bats too, we've known for a long time as well. Last summer we did a week out in the Maritimes with 3 Inches, so we've got a history.

Emily: How many dates are on the tour?

Kevin: This one with them is only about 15 shows actually, but we go down the West Coast on our own after and we come back up and do Sled Island (in Calgary), with two shows in a row there, so we still have another month after this.

Emily: What do you think of Sled Island?

Kevin: I've never played it before but I've heard nothing but great things from everybody.

Emily: Explain "Tour Mode," how do you prepare?

Kevin: Well I mean you can practice all you want really, but as soon as you get up on a stage and the sound is different and there's different energy, it's a completely new thing. Even if you are the most well-rehearsed band in the world you can't predict what will happen. When you're on tour and you're playing every night, it's a different vibe you get into. Having to get used to the sound, the crowd and the monitors and all that shit - once you get adjusted to that it's a whole new vibe.

Emily: What was the best show on this tour so far?

Kevin: Edmonton actually, we hit the stride there. Everything sounded really good, tons of people, people were kind of going mental; everything seemed perfect, the kind of show where you just fork the whole time.

Emily: That's kind of hard for Calgarians to hear (Rival Cities)

Kevin: Well Calgary is my favourite fucking place to play. I actually get nervous because I'm so excited about Calgary and I want it to be so fucking good because it always fucking rules. That was actually our first good Edmonton show, we've had a lot of duds there.

Emily: What was your worst show so far?

Kevin: The worst show was probably the first show of this tour which was in Quebec City. It was awful, a bunch of our amps broke and it sounded like mud, it was just bad news.

Emily: Ok, so what about the new album?

Kevin: It's called Bangers II: Scum of the Earth and it is the same kind of vibe as the first one but a lot darker, a lot more fierce. It's a continuation, you can tell it's the same band but I feel you can tell we got better and more intense.

Emily: What was the vision for this album?

Kevin: The initial musical vision was to write something non-stop. Lyrically, there's a cohesive theme of a cosmic battle of the "Scum of the Earth", people who think for themselves and do what they love and don't subscribe to fundamentalist beliefs and alienate people, against those who do. It's a dichotomy of people who gather together to fight the forces of what I would call "evil".

Emily: Who decided on the song title "Kegstand and Deliver?"

Kevin: That was a friend of mine who is just a really witty, funny dude. I've named all the other songs and I like often for them to be witty and plays on words and what not. He knows I like that kind of stuff, and I thought it was great so that's the one song on everything that I didn't name.

Emily: What your favourite song of Bangers II to play live?

Kevin: I think maybe the title track, "Scum of the Earth" is really fun. There are a lot of parts where I don't have to sing so I can just play and jump around.

Emily: How are you getting along with Metalblade?

Kevin: Pretty good, yeah. There's definitely always the element that we're the small fish on the label and they've got a lot of big bands but this album they're really excited about. They've been really cool about doing their best and getting everything going, they are even underestimating a little bit they're already shipping out a lot of albums and they don't have any more to give us. It's good but also shitty because we need albums to sell on tour.